Skyjacked in southern Spain

A SATELLITE provider has come under fire for conning pensioners out of hundreds of euros.

In a case remarkably similar to that of Free2viewTV – which the Olive Press investigated last year – a trio of victims have complained.

British expat Joseph Crawford, 73, has filed a denuncia against Costafreesat after the company allegedly overcharged him for work.

“They advertise a 10 per cent discount for pensioners but it is a strategy designed to rip off the vulnerable,” explained Crawford, who recently moved from Marbella to Benalmadena.

“I hired them to put up my satellite dish, which cost me 400 euros as they claimed they had used 150m of cable.

“Then, when I lost signal a few weeks later I discovered my dish had vanished and I was merely connected to my neighbour’s dish.”

When he rang to complain, the company first insisted they had never heard of him, then said he wasn’t in when they came round to solve the problem.

He eventually paid 77 euros to another company, Skydoctor, to put things right.

Boss Mark Wood insisted it wasn’t the first time he had fixed problems caused by Costafreesat. “I don’t know how they get away with it,” he said. “They are putting our trade to shame.”

Rival Mark Greenhalgh, of Camposat, added: “When customers complain they swear at them down the phone.”

It is remarkably similar to the case of Free2viewTV the Olive Press reported on last year.

When we spoke to boss Steve Rose he threatened to sue us if we reported on it.

He had previously threatened to sue a customer who had complained and warned him his wife was a lawyer.

By email he wrote: “Get a life you muppet.”

Another victim, Rosemary Mitchell, 62, from Pizarra, who has recently had similar problems with Costafreesat said: “They seem to delight in upsetting older people.”

When we contacted Costafreesat this week, its boss Steve, refused to give his surname, but then later answered to the name Steve Rose.

He denied the allegations of Crawford and insisted he had seen no denuncia.

“It was a massive job and I had to get permission to run cable over seven or eight floors and it took us six hours. “We certainly didn’t steal it. It is a 1.3m dish; it’s not something you can hide in the boot. He’s just confused.”

He added: “Why are you trying to destroy us? We are just people making a living.”

Why do people still use these rip off companies just because they speak english. Local TV installers (Spanish) can put up the required size disk and you can purchase a satellite freeview box from Amazon, a decent Spanish installer will tune it in for you for a fraction of what these cowboys charge. Alternatively get Digital + lots of channels showing lots of American and British TV shows and you can change the language to English on 90% of them, they also have BBC world and SKY news.

Just like to chime in, I had costafreesat out to fit my dish, and when steve arrived, he had a look about him, he changed the price we agreed on and I totally rejected it, as we had already agreed on a price the first time he had come around. After that I used satellitetvcostadelsol and had no problem, a nice guy! Great prices. I think the problem is people do not use recommendations, they use adverts in the papers, and really, we should go with who our friends and neighbours know and recommend.

I am new subscriber to Olive and it a good newspaper to read and something caught my eye from past news of Costafreesat (Apri 2012) for which I had my dish installed and there had been problems and now (November) I found that SKY had been disconnected after only 2 months and over 500EU was paid for. I’ve tried contacting by email (being profoundly deaf) but there has been no response at all. son in law even tried call on various telephone numbers without success. Has Costafreesat ceased trading and ran away with the money??? They need to be investigated.

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Voted Spain‘s number one expat newspaper and second in the world, by 27,000 people polled by UK marketing group Tesca. “The best English newspaper in southern Spain,” according to the Rough Guide. The Olive Press is the English language newspaper for Andalucia. Local news from Costa del Sol and inland Andalucia plus national news from around Spain. A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge and growing expatriate community in southern Spain – 230,000 copies distributed monthly (160,000 digital impressions) with an estimated readership, including the website, of more than 500,000 people a month.